The Power of Purpose
The Power of Purpose
The Power of Purpose packs a punch when you take all of the reasons for your business and distill them into a precise, meaningful statement telling us what the company does, who it serves and what sets it apart from the competition. We call this the Purpose Statement. Some examples:
Otis Elevator - To provide any customer a means of moving people and things up, down and sideways over short distances with higher reliability than any similar enterprise in the world.
Nike – To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
Amazon.com – To be the world’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online at a great price.
Your first step to create a Purpose Statement is to go through a process of analysis by answering the following questions:
• Why did you start this business?
• What is your market place?
• Who are your customers? What is your group of customers?
• What is so special about you as individuals that adds value to your business?
• What is so special about your business and your products?
• How are you different from your competition?
• How do you and/or your products add value to your customers’ businesses?
• What is your vision?
• What image do you want to portray?
Turn these same questions into “nots” (for example, what is NOT your market place) and answer them in the same way in order to identify boundaries to your Purpose Statement.
To write a Purpose Statement that is precise, succinct and comprehensible is very difficult. But the Power of Purpose will make it worthwhile. So take your time and put in the effort because the results will be very beneficial. Do not concern yourself with writing eloquent prose that brilliantly captures the very core of your purpose; that will come later. We are much more concerned with content.
Go back through all the notes you have been keeping and highlight key words and key phrases. Copy the highlighted parts to another document. Stare at them and think! Can you see a pattern emerging? Discuss them. Take a first stab at turning them into a statement. Rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it until you are sure it is done. Live with it for awhile. Show it to others and take heed of their advice.
As you work through this extremely important facet of business management keep the following points in mind. These are the secrets of a good Purpose Statement.
It is concise. This makes it easy to remember and opens up opportunities like printing it on the back of your business cards.
It is understandable. A Purpose Statement must not be flush with incomprehensible techno gobble and/or business jargon. You want people to understand it!
It is known. Communicate your Purpose to the world! Or at least to your employees, customers, suppliers, bankers, accountants and anyone else you do business with.
It is the focus. Whenever you think of making changes to your company the Purpose Statement becomes the focus of the decision. Does this change fit your Purpose? If it does not should we be changing the Purpose (major impact) or reassessing the proposed change?
It is memorable. You can never forget your company’s Purpose Statement whether it is because you have it hanging on your office wall or because you have repeated it so many times it is imbedded in your brain.
It is the centre of the universe. When developing your strategic plans the Purpose Statement is the centre of the universe around which everything else spins. The Purpose comes first; the plans follow.
It is general in scope. At first this seems a contradiction; a clear concise statement being general in scope! What this means is you don’t want to be so specific that you are constantly changing your Purpose or unnecessarily restricting your market. For example, “Our purpose is to provide the home furnishing retailers of Toronto with the finest ……” should probably be restated “to provide home furnishing retailers with the finest ….” So that you don’t restrict your market.
Your Purpose is NOT about making money. For example, it must not contain statements about profit targets or sales volumes to be achieved. These sort of statements belong in the Long Term Objectives because they are a fundamental condition of operating your company from one year to the next. They would also make your Purpose Statement much too specific requiring you to change it on a regular basis.
If you find yourself jumping from one business opportunity to another; if you are constantly adding products without thought to the right product mix; if you are on an endless treadmill of crisis after crisis; then you are probably in need of the Power of Purpose.
The Power of Purpose - To learn more about this author, visit Nick Hughes's Website.
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Do you know the purpose of your business? Do you clearly understand why you started your business? Have you communicated this purpose to all those who work with you? Have you documented the purpose? If the answers to any of these is ‘no’ then you are probably finding it difficult to stay on course as you are bombarded by the day to day surprises lurking in your future. The solution lies in the Power of Purpose, which states that when a business owner clearly knows and deeply believes in the purpose of her business she will achieve great success because she has a strong beacon to guide every action and decision.
The Power of Purpose packs a punch when you take all of the reasons for your business and distill them into a precise, meaningful statement telling us what the company does, who it serves and what sets it apart from the competition. We call this the Purpose Statement. Some examples:
Otis Elevator - To provide any customer a means of moving people and things up, down and sideways over short distances with higher reliability than any similar enterprise in the world.
Nike – To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
Amazon.com – To be the world’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online at a great price.
Your first step to create a Purpose Statement is to go through a process of analysis by answering the following questions:
• Why did you start this business?
• What is your market place?
• Who are your customers? What is your group of customers?
• What is so special about you as individuals that adds value to your business?
• What is so special about your business and your products?
• How are you different from your competition?
• How do you and/or your products add value to your customers’ businesses?
• What is your vision?
• What image do you want to portray?
Turn these same questions into “nots” (for example, what is NOT your market place) and answer them in the same way in order to identify boundaries to your Purpose Statement.
To write a Purpose Statement that is precise, succinct and comprehensible is very difficult. But the Power of Purpose will make it worthwhile. So take your time and put in the effort because the results will be very beneficial. Do not concern yourself with writing eloquent prose that brilliantly captures the very core of your purpose; that will come later. We are much more concerned with content.
Go back through all the notes you have been keeping and highlight key words and key phrases. Copy the highlighted parts to another document. Stare at them and think! Can you see a pattern emerging? Discuss them. Take a first stab at turning them into a statement. Rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it until you are sure it is done. Live with it for awhile. Show it to others and take heed of their advice.
As you work through this extremely important facet of business management keep the following points in mind. These are the secrets of a good Purpose Statement.
It is concise. This makes it easy to remember and opens up opportunities like printing it on the back of your business cards.
It is understandable. A Purpose Statement must not be flush with incomprehensible techno gobble and/or business jargon. You want people to understand it!
It is known. Communicate your Purpose to the world! Or at least to your employees, customers, suppliers, bankers, accountants and anyone else you do business with.
It is the focus. Whenever you think of making changes to your company the Purpose Statement becomes the focus of the decision. Does this change fit your Purpose? If it does not should we be changing the Purpose (major impact) or reassessing the proposed change?
It is memorable. You can never forget your company’s Purpose Statement whether it is because you have it hanging on your office wall or because you have repeated it so many times it is imbedded in your brain.
It is the centre of the universe. When developing your strategic plans the Purpose Statement is the centre of the universe around which everything else spins. The Purpose comes first; the plans follow.
It is general in scope. At first this seems a contradiction; a clear concise statement being general in scope! What this means is you don’t want to be so specific that you are constantly changing your Purpose or unnecessarily restricting your market. For example, “Our purpose is to provide the home furnishing retailers of Toronto with the finest ……” should probably be restated “to provide home furnishing retailers with the finest ….” So that you don’t restrict your market.
Your Purpose is NOT about making money. For example, it must not contain statements about profit targets or sales volumes to be achieved. These sort of statements belong in the Long Term Objectives because they are a fundamental condition of operating your company from one year to the next. They would also make your Purpose Statement much too specific requiring you to change it on a regular basis.
If you find yourself jumping from one business opportunity to another; if you are constantly adding products without thought to the right product mix; if you are on an endless treadmill of crisis after crisis; then you are probably in need of the Power of Purpose.
The Power of Purpose - To learn more about this author, visit Nick Hughes's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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